Commercial herbal medicines vary widely in standard - new probation

Skullcap is a powerful medicinal herb. The genus Scutellaria consists of above 350 species worldwide and has been used near many cultures to treat a collection of medical conditions, including anxiety, nervous disorders, liver disease and cancers.

The UEL team conducted a number of examination to analogize the flavonoid biomarker content of eleven commercial tinctures derived from the two most commonly-used species, S. American skullcap) and S. Chinese skullcap). They fashion that commercial tinctures of both Scutellaria species vary widely in the drug-to-extract ratio (ranging from 1:1 to 1:5) and alcohol concentration (25 to 70%), depending on the manufacturer.

Thus, for the herbalist there is no guarantee or measure of either quality or efficacy from the products currently available. They suggested this varying could assist to explain the variable efficacy of herbal drug used in clinical practice and also the variation in the reported activity of herbal medicines and dietary supplements in clinical trying out and in assays of pharmacological activity.

Dr Olivia Corcoran, lead researcher and head of Forensic Science at UEL, said: Wide variability in the biomarker content of herbal preparations undermines the practice of herbal drug itself. There is an urgent call for for products to be labelled with accurate assessment of the content of agreed biomarkers.

Without such labelling, it is immensely difficult to assess the effects of herbal medicines, various of which are known to be vain in low doses and dangerous in high concentrations." Patrick Wilson Quelle: Weitere Informationen:

Medizintechnik 09.04.2008 Veranstaltungsnachrichten Global IIR Convention "Airport IT", Berlin 09.04.2008 Veranstaltungsnachrichten 9.

From http://innovations-report.de/html/berichte/biowissenschaften~.html